I think so. They went to two years for Graveman and he passes and the same years and money is offered to Hector.
Forgive me if someone's already mentioned this, but Neris tweaked his delivery in the middle of the summer and gained a couple of mph and his peripherals were amazing after that. Lots of teams knew that, and that's why there was in fact a strong market for him, combined with the fact that he has always missed lots of bats and is never ever injured. Also he was worth 1.2 WAR last year and at 9 per, he works out to almost 11 million/year player. The deal is fine.
Between Neris, Stanek, Maton, and Pressly I feel a lot more confident about this pen going into the ‘22 season than I did last year. Paredes, Scrubb, Abreu, and James all **** the bed or were injured to some degree. All 4 of the guys I mentioned are capable of saving games. I’m not mad at the neris deal. I feel like there are more moves incoming.
* both aces If your only bar for a good GM is winning a WS in his first few years, you are going to be incredibly disappointed
And Pedro Baez. The FO saw something really good in him pre injury that should equate to a late inning guy. I’m hoping it’s still there.
I didn't realize that Click was the GM in Tampa. Even if he was (Which he wasn't) he hasn't done anything to rival what Luhnow did in Houston. The Stros are setup to compete for championships for the next atleast five years maybe even a decade if Click's as good as you think he is. Hope you're right about Click.
Did his ace have an injury history? Was there time and money to mke trades for more starting pitching? Or was that extra money spent on the Baez/Castro signings? This is what I'm talking about when I said there are reasons.
That's a terrible example of that WAR/Money stat everyone likes to throw around. The problem is the WAR you are using has Graveman with a 2.1 WAR and he is making 500k less AAV. So that formula is garbage, and it shows we massively overpaid based on the current market when 2.1 WAR = 8 mil AAV based on literally the reliever to sign right before Neris..... I don't have a huge problem with the Neris signing. The money was a little higher than I expected. It does suck that Neris is 32 and has zero playoff experience. Graveman was in the same situation last season, but at least we know now he held up in the playoffs.
is three years and a hundred million short of what Correa is asking. Handing out contracts like that will leave a team loaded down with albatrosses a few years down the road. It is just a more expensive way to lose year after year. We have been through that before. It is why the team was for sale when Crane bought it and tore it down. I would just as soon not go through that again.
I agree that those two will probably be lost if they can't be locked up in the next year or two. If they are unwilling to extend well before they become free agents they will most likely go to a team that is desperate enough to overpay in a big way.
The team wasn’t going to 3 WS in 5 years under the previous ownership. This time and this core is special… the best era of Astros baseball ever. When it ends, it ends. Everybody should be all for optimizing the current core for the next 3 years as much as possible. The Mariners went through a similar transition in the late 90’s… minus the playoff success. And after losing every superstar, refusing to get saddled with big deals, turns out they not only missed a potential championship window, they started giving out even bigger deals to worse players.
Houston has lost 2 homegrown core members of their 2017 team (Keuchel and Springer) and still went to the World Series this year. Their current roster (without Correa) projects for 90-100 wins and they still have $10M-$20M to spend plus a glut of desired young upper level pitching they can trade from. They also have 5 elite prospects (depending on who you ask), very good farm depth, and no overly burdensome contracts. The Astros are not the Cardinals; they are starting off with a better core, have spent more money each year, and have a better farm development organization. If you want to compare the Astros to somebody it would be either the Rays (except with a MUCH bigger ability to add to the team using payroll) or the Dodgers (with maybe 10-20% less money to spend). Even if the only thing you care about is winning the World Series, you should not want Houston to give Carlos Correa $300M+. And Houston has an extremely bright outlook over the next 2, 5, or even long years with or without Correa.
Nicely worded. The Cardinals were a better model to compare under Luhnow, due to his connection with their system. The Rays are a better comparison under Click, and the elite core is a great point. However, I’m not sure we would have ever given Correa the deal that the Rays gave to Franco, even with a longterm feasible AAV. Of course, Franco has a much higher ceiling. A lot has changed since Carlos was in his rookie year, though.
The GM always gets the credit and the blame for the moves made by an organization. Do we give Stone credit or blame for Morey's moves with the Rockets? Does Nick Caserio get credit for the Patriots championships? A new GM, like a new coach, can have all the potential in the world, and you want to hire one from a good organization. But they get judged by what they do when they are actually calling the shots, not when they are VP of whatever.
is the consensus here that we would rather have Graveman at 3/24? Or that we just don’t want Neris at 2/17? I think the former is highly debatable. The folks who say relief pitching is highly variable year to year should balk at Graveman deal. im in wait and see mode. This org has earned that at least.
There are certainly problems with just assigning a single dollar value to WAR. I don't think this shows the formula is garbage though. The value is about WAR going forward, not the WAR of last year. You also have to consider the length of the contract, longer contract = more risk which means less $ / WAR. Consider Graveman's first half performance is incredibly unlikely to happen again. If you look over their careers which have been about the same length, Neris has been the better pitcher and he has better secondary metrics. Their overall WAR numbers are very similar of their carriers, although Graveman's are boosted from three years as a starter. Graveman had a better last year. For the sake of Let's call it a wash in terms of their expected WAR going forward. So the guy who signed a 2 year contract, got slightly more AAV than the guy who signed a 3 year contract. That seems like the "market" is valuing WAR relatively similarly. I think you could make a good argument they are both overpaid, but this is what the market is and the Astros needed a 8th inning guy who can also close periodically. They got someone who should be as good as anyone else out there that is attainable. I like Graveman and what he did last year, but I think 2 years at 17 is preferable to 3 years at 24 for either guy.
The poster I quoted used the WAR from last season for his argument. He didn't use projected WAR. I would have rather paid Graveman since he is now a known quantity in the playoffs. Neris is a total unknown in that regard. Hopefully he is more Graveman like and not Giles like in the post season.
